Handpainted Laceweight Wool Yarn in Peony Colorway

Handpainted Laceweight Wool Yarn in Peony Colorway, originally uploaded by confections.

This is a laceweight skein of yarn that I handpainted for a good friend last summer. She has moved to New Hampshire and I miss her dearly. I am comforted by the fact that she will knit something yummy out of this skein and its fuzzy companion to keep her warm during that cold New England winter.

To distract me a little from the novel writing, a shipment of undyed wool yarns arrived on my doorstep yesterday. I'll be in the dye studio off and on throughout the month as an antidote to the intensity of writing at least 2,000 words per day (and my blog entries do not count!).

My Victorian Grand-Aunts Galbraith

My Victorian Grand-Aunts Galbraith, originally uploaded by confections.

These stylish ladies are the sisters of my maternal grandfather. I love their Victorian grandeur. Several of them were schoolteachers and never married; they tatted and painted on china and traveled abroad. My mother remembers playing dress-up with her sister from a trunk full of their cast-off dresses. Their mother was a dressmaker before she married my great-grandfather.

I recently began to do some serious genealogy on-line and found a long-lost cousin in North Carolina who had this photo and several dozen others from my mother's family that we had never seen. What a treasure!